Thursday, July 31, 2014

It's been just over two years since I last delved into the grease-slicked jacuzzi waters of the Best-Worst show on reality TV, The Bachelor, to write weekly episode recaps detailing everything a bunch of vacuous women did with one exceedingly dull man and gallons of fake tan, saliva and pinot grigio.

To be frank, the experience was so gruelling it took me that long to recover from it.

But then I saw the trailers for the Australian version and in a moment of panic, blinded by a bevy of buxom bogans in sequins, I thought "Yeah, alright".

So here we are, the first episode of season two, otherwise known as "Seriously? They commissioned another season of that?"

If you've never seen The Bachelor Australia never fear - it's just like the American one, only with a smaller budget. In fact funding is so scarce this year the producers have had to rely largely on sponsorship:

From the National Sequins Advisory Council of Australia...

...and the Royal Tasmanian Foundation for Blind Interior Designers...

...and the Celebrity Lookalike Agency of Potts Point, Sydney, who graciously lent out their Geoff Huegill for the duration of the show. (Well, it's not like he's been getting much work lately)

Oh no wait - that's actually our bachelor, Blake Garvey.

Blake is 31, works in real estate and likes taking his shirt off in public places.

And for this we are grateful.

As well as being totally buff, Blake seems nice, genuine and somewhat intelligent. But he's also the kind of guy who is so proud to work in real estate he wears auction hammer cufflinks, so all is not lost for the world of comedy.

This is why Blake is still single.

After putting on his most water-resistant dinner suit Blake zooms off in a stretch limo to the Shag Mansion, a giant house pretending to be a cake, where he will meet 24 single women specially selected from all around the country to vie for his affections and set back feminism 50 years.

Or, as is more often the case, to get really drunk really quickly, embarrass themselves spectacularly and go home in tears.

Women like Anita, a dog groomer from Victoria who "doesn't see many humans" and is keen to "move on from a dog to a man".

"That doesn't make me sound weird, right?"

At first glance Anita seems the type of person least likely to cope with the pressures of reality TV, but then we see her rolling around with two shaggy dogs shouting "No! Don't mount her!", so at least we know she'll be prepared for life in the mansion.

Then there's Diana - "like the princess!" she explains, for the benefit of all the millions at home scratching their heads over such an unconventional name.

Diana claims to be a 28-year-old IT student but is clearly actually some sort of hologram from "Kim Kardashian: Hollywood" that's accidentally manifested in the real world.

This is Diana the 28-year-old.

This is Diana the 28-year-old's bed.

This is Diana the 28-year-old writing an important business memo in her notepad.

SHE WROTE IT WITH A FLUFFY PINK PEN.

"I WOULD LOVE IF MICKEY MOUSE WOULD COME AND MARRY ME!" she shrieks, as testicles all around Australia retreat northward.

And then there's Osher Gunsberg, who would be a better choice than either Anita or Diana but who is sadly off the menu as the host of the show.

Osher welcomes Blake into the lush gardens of Shag Mansion, which this week have been decorated by the Fire Safety Awareness Association of NSW as a demonstration of how not to place outdoor lighting:

"Contractually I am obliged to tell you that we are standing in a fire risk right now."

Suddenly there's a flash of headlights coming down the driveway - THE WOMEN ARE COMING.

"I could feel the anticipation building up," says Blake. "I could be about to meet that woman I'll spend the rest of my life with."

Sure. Or it could just be indigestion.

"I have no idea what to expect," he says.

Dude, this shit has been on TV for 14 years. Literally EVERYONE knows what to expect.

I'm beginning to suspect Blake might not be as intelligent as first thought. Meanwhile, his incredibly low voice is starting to creep me out.

Anyone else thinking this?

It remains to be seen whether this season of The Bachelor is all just an elaborate trap to lure women into a giant house where they will be tortured via a series of cryptic puzzles they must solve to avoid being murdered. But cross fingers!

And so begins everyone's favourite Bachelor tradition: the annual Parade of the Perpetually Awkward, in which all 24 women must negotiate their way in skintight ballgowns out of the same rented limo (it's the sweetest gig of the year - the bloke just drives up and down a driveway for eight hours and collects a cheque at the end) and sashay through the million and one lanterns to smile uncomfortably at the Bachelor, say something cringeworthy, and bugger off into the Shag Mansion to get drunk and morph into daytime soap characters.

PARADE OF AWKWARDNESS, IN A NUTSHELL:

* Victorian financial assistant Sam makes a memorable first impression by introducing Blake to her invisible midget friend Gary, who accompanies her wherever she goes:

"He loves a nice pat on the head - don't you Gary?"

* Then there's 31-year-old Emma, from Melbourne, otherwise known as "the reason we no longer put champagne in the limos".

"His voice is so charismatic and caramel, like Barry Manilow's, darling!" Emma cackles to the camera.

It's Barry White, dear. Here, have another Malibu.

* Moving on to design consultant Chantal, 26, who gets out her copy of How To Turn Off A Guy In Ten Easy Steps, turns to chapter three: "Give him a lame romantic present on the first date", and promptly gives Blake a heart-shaped keychain that says "Let's hang".

"I've already put a spare key to my house on there for you."

* Having heard rumours that a rival agency has successfully gotten a Geoff Huegill lookalike on the show, Copycat Celebrity Impressions in Paramatta immediately sends over their Miranda Kerr double, who... oh no wait, that's just 24-year-old accounting student Jessica:

And teenage boys around the nation suddenly express an interest in being accountants.

* Meanwhile, Jessica either needs more supportive hosiery or she has a really lenient parole officer:

The first person to make a home detention anklet look sexy?

* After that is a bunch of sequinned dresses with names attached who are too boring to get more than three seconds air time each. Blake smiles. I check my watch.

* Then there's Lauren, who impresses Blake with an impromptu performance of her one-woman Cabaret Festival show "Xanadu: The Wheel Story":

The Herald Sun gave it four stars.

* Moving on to events planner Louise, who turns up with a cocktail in hand and therefore is most likely to be the one the producers paid off to get drunk and stir up trouble in the first episode.

"Drink. It is the blood of the producer who said I couldn't keep this dress afterwards."

"I love surprising people. I love people to walk away after meeting me going 'wow, I did not expect that'," Louise says, which either indicates an extremely sizeable ego or a penchant for doing really weird shit in meetings. Like turning up with "signature cocktails" named after herself.

* Suddenly the plinky-plonk string music starts up signifying something "kooky" is about to happen.

"YOU MUST HAVE A SMALL MOUTH!" booms Anita the dog groomer.

Yep, that'd be it.

"If you forget my name just remember 'I need her'," she jokes. "But say it fast, so it's like 'Anita'!"

THANKS ANITA, WE GET IT.

Then she bursts into song, which elicits the greatest reaction shot of any Bachelor season ever:

The facial equivalent of a tumbleweed.

"Sometimes when I meet a guy I really like I do write little songs to let them know how I'm feeling," says Anita.

Yep, I thought she looked familiar.

* Obviously there's a leaderboard somewhere backstage where all the women are competing to be the most mental, because then Diana "Like The Princess" shows up in a tiara and gives Blake a crown so he can like, be her prince or whatever.

"This is basically like a gold ring, so now we're married."

Diana has odd, unblinking eyes and speaks like a robot with its vocal settings permanently set to "questioning tone". Whenever she's on screen it's like a scene from a Westworld sequel set in Disneyland.

* Not to be outdone in the robotic stakes, on comes admin assistant slash alien cyborg Samantha, who for the last six months has been studying male human behaviour from her spaceship in order to present herself as the perfect human female, win The Bachelor's hand in marriage, and begin a new superior race of robot babies to take over the world.

Unfortunately her circuitry is a bit off, so she gives him a stuffed bear. You know, like blokes are into.

"I BELIEVE YOU HUMANS LIKE CUTE THINGS. THIS IS A CUTE THING. LOVE ME."

Sensing a lack of enthusiasm for her gift Samantha scans her memory banks for a witty phrase to lighten the mood, but can only come up with a 404 error, so she resorts to her fallback strategy - attack mode.

"I SAID LOVE ME!"

* Annoyed at being the only celebrity lookalike agency in Sydney to not yet have a staff member featured on the show, Diamond Doppelgangers in Redfern immediately dispatches their Lisa McCune double to the set:

Actually, her name is Katrina and seems pretty normal, so I kind of love her. She also sings Blake a song, except this time it's actually good.

"Yeah, but can she wash dogs?"

* And finally we meet Laurina, a 30-year-old "fashion entreprenoo-ah" and Guinness World Record holder for the longest neck in the southern hemisphere:

She is also impossibly beautiful, which is why I choose to use this pic. Hey, it's my blog, I can do what I want.

The parade finally over, we head into the Shag Mansion where human toupee Osher Gunsberg is explaining the rules of the game. Namely: if Blake doesn't give you a rose, he doesn't want to root you.

"There are 24 amazing women in this room, and only 20 roses," the hairdo explains.

"So that means... wait, has anyone got a calculator?"

Meanwhile, in the front row:

Really not bothered.

But it's not just red roses the women have to worry about, says the hairpiece. This year there's a crazy new twist to the rose ceremony - a WHITE rose.

All the women basically lose their minds over this news, despite not having a clue what it means.

"OMG A WHITE ROOOOOOSE!"

"The Bachelor will give the white rose to the woman who makes the greatest impression on him tonight," the walking toupee explains.

"Whoever receives the white rose will be granted safe passage through the first two rose ceremonies."

So the white rose is basically The Bachelor's answer to Survivor's immunity idol or Masterchef's immunity pin.

Except in Survivor and Masterchef winning immunity is actually valuable, because it prevents you from being voted out by scheming contestants or sent home for messing up a challenge. There's no advantage to winning immunity in The Bachelor, because the only way you can get kicked off the show is if Blake decides he doesn't want to shag you, which is something that simply hanging around for an extra two weeks probably won't change much.

Also, Blake is clearly going to give the white rose to someone he finds attractive enough to want to get to know further. So failing that person turning out to be a massive racist/Liberal voter/braindead he most likely would have given them a red rose at the next two ceremonies anyway.

SO WHAT'S THE POINT?

Roger that.

Basically there's no benefit to winning a two week immunity on The Bachelor, unless you plan to spend those two weeks slothing around in trackies and acting like a douchebag, safe in the knowledge you can't be kicked out. So I sincerely hope whoever wins it does that.

Anyway, enough of all this foreplay. It's time for the first night cocktail party, otherwise known as the Chardonnay Thunderdome: 24 women enter, at least one leaves in tears and without her shoes.

COCKTAIL PARTY IN A NUTSHELL:

* First to bond with Blake is real estate sales PA Holly, who wants to be an agent but hasn't got enough time because her professional netball career is really taking off and... hh^%sa8y7Sgs2zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz... Sorry, I just dozed off for a second there.

* Meanwhile, the trailer for new horror film "Anita" looks scary as shit:

In cinemas this summer.

* Here's a fun game: try and pick which of the following are either a) lines from Stephen King's Misery or b) lines direct from Anita's mouth.

"Most of the night I did make sure I kept an eye on him."

"I'm a hunter not a gatherer. I don't want to be just gathered. I want to HUNT it."

"I'm the jealous type. I normally hate guys even looking at other girls."

"I'm impatient. I'm so FRICKIN impatient. I'm quite a go-getter. I'm not just someone who sits around and waits for things to happen."

"You dirty bird."

That's right, all except the last one are Anita originals.

But she did THINK the last one.

* "I like him because I can genuinely tell how authentic he is," says Sam, who has known Blake for about half an hour. Perhaps she bit into him?

* Meanwhile long-neck Laurina couldn't care less how authentic Blake is. Or if he's even still at the party, frankly.

"I'm all about the mystery, so I'd rather not see him again tonight," she says.

Of course her total lack of interest drives Blake wild and he chases her all over the house, so Laurina makes him sit down next to Miranda Kerr lookalike Jessica and gets them both to talk about how beautiful she is.

"She's a very stylish woman," says Jessica.

"She's like Audrey Hepburn - I've always had a bit of a crush on her as an actress and I was like, wow, yeah you've nailed that!" gushes Blake, as Laurina sits there batting her eyelashes.

"Yeah yeah, she's heaps like Audrey Hepburn. Now can we talk about me for a bit?"

"So do you remember each other's names? Good," says Laurina, getting up and striding away leaving Jessica and Blake with nothing to talk about but how amazing she is.

And that's how it's done.

* But not everyone thinks Laurina is so amazing, notably fiesty Canadian Amber, who calls her an "idiot" and pulls the greatest "OH NO SHE DIDN'T" face of the episode so far:

"More like Schmaudrey Schmepburn, am I right?"

* Laurina continues winning more fans when someone asks her if she's ever dated anyone who looks like Blake.

"All my ex boyfriends look exactly like that," she says.

"Because I had them all manufactured at the same plant in Guangzhou."

* Speaking of Chinese manufacturing plants, I think I've worked out what Laurina does in her role as a "fashion entrepreneur":

She really puts her neck on the line for her work.

* Katrina the Lisa McCune lookalike gets the first rose, and a ripple of shock goes through the women. Realising time is of the essence, Anita throws herself onto Blake shrieking "DO YOU MIND IF I GRAB YOU?", a phrase which launched a thousand sexual harassment lawsuits.

Sensing Anita's crazy levels are at an all time high, the other women clear the area as she and Blake sit down for a one-on-one chat. All except alien cyborg Samantha, whose primitive CPU prevents her from assessing the imminent danger of the situation.

"COUCH STATUS: OCCUPIED. MAINTAIN WAIT FOR VACANCY."

Fortunately she's brought a decent supply of coolant with her to keep her processors running while she waits. Although it might be a while; Anita is thrilling Blake with some scintillating conversation about the sports and hobbies he likes to do.

Cyborgs may not understand love, but they totally get passive aggression.

* After being forced to listen to approximately seven and a half hours of Anita saying things like "So what's real estate like?" and "Do you like dogs?" Samantha finally gets her turn alone with Blake, and immediately arses it up:

All that coolant caused a failure in her hydraulics.

* "So, why are you single?" Blake asks her.

It's true, he's really not as intelligent as we thought.

* "Anita seemed like she really put in some effort to get to talk to me tonight, which is quite flattering," Blake says through gritted teeth, trying desperately to convince us that he really is interested in a slightly deranged dog groomer from country Victoria, and isn't being forced to keep her in by the producers because she's good television.

* Then it's time for another red rose to be handed out and... seriously? I mean, come on! I've seen Michael Bay movies shorter than this. Christ. Anyway this time the lucky recipient is "Luscious" Louise the human cocktail, who celebrates by spontaneously acquiring foreign accent syndrome. (Seriously, did anyone else notice when she suddenly turned American?)

* "The white rose still hasn't come out," says Sam, although it's unclear whether she's referring to the flower or using some sort of bizarre innuendo.

Whatever it is, the gifting of two red roses so far is enough to drive the women batshit crazy; some start running through the garden, stalking Blake in the bushes, others pace up and down. Laurina polishes the coffee table.

Despite nobody ending up in tears or a scrag fight or even seemingly getting drunk (seriously, I know the budget's tight but fruity lexia is like $5 a box) the cocktail party is finally over, and Blake retires to the set of Game of Thrones to decide which four women he's going to execute.

"Which of these chicks has dragons again?"

Will it be crazy Anita the dog groomer from hell? Or Diana the deluded Disney princess? Or will it be this girl, who has clearly just crawled out of Sydney Harbour and broken onto the set without anyone noticing?

"Just keep cool, no one's realised yet..."

As it turns out, it's none of them. Instead Blake says goodbye to Karla and Emma L, which is fine because who the hell even knows who they are, and Emma F, who heads straight to the nearest bar to drown her sorrows with cheap champagne and a Barry Manilow Greatest Hits CD.

The saddest cut of all is Samantha the passive aggressive cyborg; she can't even cry about the situation because it will short circuit her vision sensors. She's so overcome her motherboard overloads causing her to accidentally blurt "Hey, how are you doing?" instead of "Goodbye"as she leaves the room.

Once outside the house, she immediately resolves to ensure no one remembers her mistake.

Good choice, Blake.

Now go on and READ EPISODE TWO when Blake stumbles out of the charred and smoking remains of the Shag Mansion to go on his first date... but with whom?

LOVE LOVE!!! So much laughing out loud. And yes I noticed all the teeny details you pounced on, including Miss Cocktail's american accent. You nailed the minutiae, the look-alikes, the characterisations, the Andrew G rebranding, and every opportunity to put tongue in cheek. I will not miss an episode of this season. It's the warm up. Your blog is the main game.

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hahahaha oh my god, this is so accurate, im literally laughing with every word, i noticed nearly all the same things but you say it so much funnier! can't wait to read more of these, too funny!! geoff huegill - that was my first thought! hahaha never heard of geoff heugill being a catch though so its weird the bachelor is meant to be this amazing hot guy...! lol gonna read more of your blog now - so glad i stumbled onto this!